29 Jan 2026

As the country continues to grapple with shortages of medical supplies in public healthcare facilities, some Batswana have rolled up their sleeves to help their countrymen

While their actions may come across as a tiny drop in the vast and endless ocean, they are content that they are able to touch one life at a time; their intervention often preventing a further deterioration of health and in the worst-case scenario, a loss of life.

Motherhood Botswana Organisation, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) registered in 2018 with a mandate to improve the psychological wellbeing and social welfare status of women, has seen the ongoing drugs shortage challenges in the public healthcare system, force it to widen its range of services. 

Initially, the NGO focused on offering free counseling services and implementing an anti-Gender-Based Violence (GBV) programme in addition to its social empowerment initiative through which it helps deserving women to start businesses to support their families.

Still in the pursuit to protect the dignity of women, the organisation would also help pregnant less-privileged women with essentials necessary for themselves and their newborns whenever circumstances called for its intervention.

However, since November last year, Motherhood Botswana founder, Ms Lindiwe Nkomo started to note a new phenomenon of women pleading to be assisted to purchase medicines and other medical commodities.

Despite being alive to months-long reports of drug shortages in public health facilities, Ms Nkomo was at first reluctant to intervene given the sensitivity of issues of health.

Nonetheless, when the requests quickly added up, she knew that a matter of life and death was knocking at Motherhood Botswana’s door and that the NGO being a champion of issues of the welfare of women, it would be amiss for it to play deaf to the growing pleas for help.

“The shortage of vital health products has significantly increased the burden on our organisation. And even though we do not have support in the form of sponsors, we cannot sit back and watch another woman suffer,” she said.

To discharge this added responsibility, Motherhood Botswana relies on monetary contributions from members of its Facebook page, who spring into action whenever a call for contributions is made, raising the necessary amounts to purchase the required medications.

“The numbers (of those seeking help) are really high. We get on average 15 to 20 requests per day and mostly it’s cases of cancer, diabetes, hypertension, and kidney diseases,” Ms Nkomo explained, saying the high volume of requests pointed to the gravity of the situation.

Ms Nkomo wished government could put into place several interventions including going into effective partnerships with civil society organisations so that they could help carry the burden of support whenever the nation came face-to-face with any sort of crisis.

As the reality of drug shortages continue to test the nation’s resilience, some citizens are trying to come up with ways of mitigating the crisis. A Facebook user, one Kushatha Melanie Schroeder suggests, ‘If it was possible, this is the time for families to consider motshelo wa medication’. 

During a fact-finding mission by President Advocate Duma Boko at Nyangabwe Referral Hospital on Friday, it emerged that the hospital is grappling with several challenges.

From drug shortages to old medical equipment, constrained spaces and personnel shortages, the case of Nyangabwe reflects a broader situation that is prevailing across other public health facilities.

And a report published last week by the Office of the Ombudsman paints a picture of a public healthcare system that requires urgent attention.

It acknowledges the above-mentioned problems and shows how their combined effect costs government through referrals and outsourcing of services that could otherwise not be necessary.

The Ombudsman reports that government spends P300 million on referrals and P12 million on private Emergency Medical Services (EMS), annually.

Corruption is also blamed for the breakdown of healthcare service delivery, with one of the findings being that some health personnel sabotage service delivery by tempering with medical equipment in order to force referrals to private hospitals.

The Ombudsman also shone the light on public laboratories’ failure to obtain and maintain accreditation.

Only the National Tuberculosis Reference Laboratory, Athlone, Sekgoma Memorial, Bamalete Lutheran and Nyangabwe Referral Hospitals are currently accredited; with the rest of the labs having lost their accreditation due to persistent shortages of reagents and the poor state of their lab equipment.

During President Boko’s tour of Nyangabwe Hospital, Hospital Superintendent Dr Ivan Kgetse reported that the facility’s laboratory was left with just a month’s worth of reagents; a worrying development.

President Boko has nevertheless assured the nation that despite the enormity of the crisis, government would face it courageously, adopting where necessary, drastic and unorthodox measures to address it.

The ultimate target of the aggressive and targeted solutions that will be deployed will be to save the nation and restore its confidence in the public healthcare system. BOPA